Category: Kickstarter

Ever since The Outliers where Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, we’ve been looking at electronic instruments that repurpose existing paths to virtuosity. To reach that 10,000 hours – an instrument requires a progression from which to travel from novice to master. Learning curves with existing teachers and learning materials come with a track record of success. The recorder fits the bill. It already has tons of books, videos and teachers. But, the eCorder takes it to a whole new level

On top of the recorder interface, Michael Shonle and his team has built a synthesizer based on Physical Modeling (PM) principles combined with subtractive synthesis. All the nuance of tone and voice control is used to drive a PM synth, which is then combined with some wicked resonant filters and DSP goodness. Or take advantage of its has MIDI and CV output, and use it to rock out on existing synthesizers.

Crowdfunded musical instruments keep impressing. Innovators are taking novel concepts to the market faster than ever. We’ve assembled a new list of 10 great projects that raised over two million dollars combined. This list surpasses our previous, and now outdated, top ten musical instruments on kickdstarter.

Artiphon
Over one million dollars raised. Artiphon captures the essence of guitar, piano and even violin through a combination of a slick hardware interface and a smartphone. Gorgeous woodworking and years of iterative design gave birth to an instant classic.

Keith over at kyubmusic recently took some time out of his day to answer my questions. He has been cooking up some interesting musical inventions, and recently had success with the Kyub kit. I am grateful for his insight, and had to share it with you.

First off, who are you? And how did you get started making these delightful boxes?

I guess I am a musical instrument designer! I’m not trying to dodge the question, but it just made me realize that maybe I passed a threshold in some sense of having sold musical instruments I designed. So if you stick with something you like may be it does work out. I studied electronics in college but was always interested in music and constructing things. I am mostly self-taught in these latter categories, something possible, I think, because these are things that interest me. I live in Milwaukee with my wife and my dog who sings to the violin if it is played just right :).

My first working design was for a servoelectric guitar in which the strings are tuned by changing their tension at high speed over about an octave – so it’s different than an auto tuning guitar. There are a handful of videos on the web of the various iterations of this and I have a website www.servoelectric guitar.com which has build instructions. It’s something that got a lot of views but didn’t go much beyond that.Read More »

The Kyub kickstarter is the cutting edge blueprint for manufacturing musical instruments.

Presellling and Idea Validation

By using kickstarter, the Kyub team is able to see if there is a market for their product. The Kyub is a way cool esoteric MIDI controller, that is beloved by a small group of people. Kickstarter allows the team to test the viability of the product before making more devices, and assembling additional product support resources.

Kickstarter win! When somebody is literally taking your kickstarter project and shoving it down their own throat, you have reached your audience!

We predicted that Mogees would succeed with their mighty kickstarter, but holy cow, they smashed their target goal. There are two days left to get your order in. Mogees is the music app to have for your mobile phone.